


A Mother's Memories

by MintSauce



Series: The Halfway House [13]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 06:23:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3757768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintSauce/pseuds/MintSauce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey and Ian go to visit Mandy. Mickey sees someone he thought he'd left well and truly in the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mother's Memories

**Author's Note:**

> The response to this series has been amazing. Seriously, thank you so much!

It wasn’t a surprise to hear that Jake had thrown in the towel and left, but it didn’t make the news any easier to listen to when Mandy called to tell them.

            “We’ll be there,” Ian had promised, already waving for Mickey to put a bag together. Which really had just been him flapping his arms around ineffectively whilst Mickey stayed on the couch watching an older episode of Friends for the fiftieth time. “Just hang tight,” he’d said. “We’re coming.”

            So when he’d hung up, he’d explained to Mickey and they’d packed a bag. It was lucky it was the weekend, so they had a whole two and a half days to spend with Mandy and work out how to comfort her. Not that Ian would have any problem comforting her, but Mickey would need to work it out.

            “A little impressed he lasted six months,” Mickey admits begrudgingly when they’re pulling into the drive.

            Ian nods, despite himself, focussing on parking neatly between a trash can and an equally worthless old car. “I think she probably expected it,” he says.

            “We all did.”

            “I know, but it makes it easier on her.”

            Mickey huffs out a sigh and jumps up the steps to Mandy’s bottom floor apartment door. He pounds his fist against the wood, mindless of the baby within as he shouts, “Yo, Mands, open the fuck up. I’m freezing my fuckin’ balls off out here.”

            “Classy, Mick,” Ian says, but Mickey does hear his comment.

            He’s too busy staring at the woman who jerks open the door. A woman who isn’t Mandy, but maybe could have been when she was younger. She certainly looks like her.

            “Michael,” she says, stern as she narrows her eyes at them standing there on her doorstep.

            Mickey sucks in a sharp breath and for a minute Ian thinks he’s just going to hold it in, suffocate himself as a way to escape this situation in front of him. Ian doesn’t know for sure, but he has an inkling that the woman is Mickey’s –

            “Ma,” Mickey says, stunned. “What are you doing here?”

            She scoffs and she sounds so much like Mickey when she does, it’s ridiculous. “Visiting my daughter in her time of need,” she says, like it should be obvious. Like she isn’t a perfect role model for _how to abandon your children when they need you most_. Then again, Mandy had always been different, hadn’t she? “I could ask the same of you.”

            “Fuck you,” Mickey barks out. He sidesteps her, leaves Ian there awkwardly hovering on the doorstep as he shouts into the house. “Ay, yo Mandy, where are you?”

            “She’s – _was_ – sleeping,” Mickey’s mother says when she sees Mandy emerging from the bedroom.

            She looks better than when they last saw her. There’s a healthier glow to her skin and she looks like she’s actually slept recently. She lights up when she spots her brother. “Mick,” she says, wrapping her arms around his neck tight enough to cut his breathing off for a second. “I’m glad you guys came. _Fuck_.”

            “Always said he was a douchebag,” Mickey says.

            “No you didn’t.”

            Mickey twists to look at Ian, who’s hovering still in the doorway, too close to Mickey’s mother for comfort. “Didn’t I say he was a douchebag?” he asks.

            “To me, yeah,” Ian replies. “But is Mandy supposed to be psychic now?”

            Mickey just rolls his eyes. “Fuck you, Gallagher.”

            Mickey’s mother makes a noise in the back of her throat, but when he looks over, she’s staring at Ian. “Oh, so you’re a Gallagher,” she says. There’s something unnecessarily judgemental in her voice and in her gaze. “How’s your mother?”

            Ian tenses and automatically, so doing Mickey. The muscle in his jaw works as he chews on his reply before finally spitting out, “I wouldn’t know,” and moving past her to give Mandy a hug.

            “Good to see you without the peg leg,” Mandy says, ruffling his hair.

            “It’s good to not have the peg leg,” he replies. “Now where’s who we really came to see?” He looks around for Ellie and the smile that splits his face when he spots her is blinding. “Can I?”

            “Go ahead.”

            No sooner has Mandy given him permission than the baby is cradled in his arms. He presses his nose to the top of her head and inhales as she babbles. “Dadadadada,” she says, clapping a sticky hand against Ian’s cheek.

            He laughs, eyes shining. “Not quite,” he says and then points to himself, exaggeratedly saying, “ _Ian_.”

            Mickey snorts, although he has to admit that the scene in front of him is rather adorable. “She ain’t gonna be able to say that, Gallagher.”

            “Gagaga,” Ellie babbles.

            Ian grins. “That’s right, little princess. Gallagher.”

            “That’s not what she said, Jesus,” Mickey mutters, earning a punch from Mandy.

            “Don’t be such a grump,” she says. “They’re adorable.” She’s watching the scene though with a small, sad smile on her face. Mickey knows that in ten seconds, Ian is probably acting like more of a caring father than Jake ever did. “He’ll want his own next,” she whispers to him.

            Mickey scoffs, “Not happening.”

            “You saying you wouldn’t want your own little rugrat running around, Mick?” she asks, loud enough this time that Ian turns towards them, a quizzical expression on his face.

            He looks so natural with the baby bouncing in his arms, babbling away to him still. Mickey could almost imagine Ian standing there with a baby, but instead in their apartment, in their little world. He can imagine Ian shirtless, rocking a small child against him, all tired eyes, mussed hair and affectionate smiles.

            It wouldn’t be so bad, maybe. One day. Not yet and not any time soon, but with Ian, Mickey knows he wouldn’t mind anything so terribly.

            “Surprised you haven’t contributed to the Milkovich brood already,” his mother comments. Blissfully, for a minute, Mickey had forgotten she was there. “You boys never did know how to keep it in your pants.”

            “Shows how little you know about us, doesn’t it?” he asks, eyes back on Ian where he’s blowing against Ellie’s face to make her laugh. Like he can feel Mickey watching, he looks over and smiles. “Hard to get a chick pregnant when you don’t do much of fucking pussy.”

            Mandy scoffs. “Much? Mick please, has your dick ever been inside a woman?”

            He flips her off, which in hindsight is all the answer she really needs.

            Mickey ignores his mother looking at him consideringly and ducks out of the room to hide in the bathroom for a second. He hasn’t seen his mother in years, but it’s like being a child again. There’s that need to try and impress her at the same time as he’s still reeling from the sting of rejection, the hurt of not being wanted.

            In a lot of ways, Mickey doesn’t blame her. It would just be so much easier if he could forget all of the good memories he has as a small child and just label her a bitch. At least with his father, the negative so greatly outweigh any of the positive that he’d be a fool to still cling to any childish love.

            With his mother though… he just can’t shake wanting to make her like him.

 

*****

 

Mickey’s come a long way from being the Terry copy he used to be. He’d been so sweet at first as a child, so in need of love and saving. Terry had soon beat that out of him and like a fool, she’d let him. She’d let him break her beautiful little boy, twist him until he became something angry and spiteful, until he became a child she didn’t recognise.

            She hadn’t wanted that child, Terry’s child. So she’d let them take him. She’d let the system take Mickey and his brothers and she’d kept sweet, lovely Mandy to herself. Of course, she grew out of being sweet and lovely just like Lucile had done as a young girl. But Mandy had always been good underneath it all, fragile.

            Lucile remembers seeing Mickey from a distance one day. It was at one of those God awful group foster homes and it had been on one of those agreed visits for Mickey and Mandy.

            She can remember seeing his split lip, the bruises on his face and thinking he hadn’t changed. She remembered thinking she had to get Mandy away from him, but then he’d smiled. Mickey had lit up at the sight of his sister, hugged her and sneered at one of the other boys that dared to venture too close.

            He’d been protective and caring and for a short moment she could see her Mickey again. Her sweet child.

            He’d used to curl up next to her on the couch, head resting against her collarbone and ask gently, “Mama, tell me a story.” He hadn’t ever wanted one of the violent tales of Vikings and warriors like his brothers had asked for. He’d wanted the happy ones, the ones that could make a child smile.

            She wonders if it’s because as a parent, she failed him there. She never quite knew how to make him happy. She hadn’t known how to protect him and as he’d gotten older, she hadn’t known how to put the smile back on his face when he cried.

            So she’d stopped trying.

            She can’t imagine he would have turned out like this. She hasn’t seen Mickey since he was twelve, maybe a little older. She hasn’t spoken to him since before that. When she thought of him, thought of how he would have turned out, it wasn’t like this.

            It wasn’t bluntly, brashly, but very firmly stating his sexuality. Gay, yeah she could imagine that. She suspects so could Terry and that’s why he’d beaten the sweetness out of Mickey when he was small. She just wouldn’t have thought he would ever come to a point where he could admit it.

            Mickey was a hider, had always hid as a child. He’d always crammed himself into tight spaces to get away from the yelling. But this Mickey, this Mickey was open and smiling as he emerged from the bathroom to catch sight of the Gallagher kid again.

            Lucile kept her distance, just watching from the kitchen as Mickey let himself be dragged closer by a finger in his belt loops. He let Ellie touch his face, smiled at her and then laughed at something Gallagher said.

            Finally happy then, her boy. He was finally happy. She couldn’t begrudge him that, even though it did only remind her how much she’d failed with Mickey.

            She watches them, watches as Ellie is handed back to Mandy for feeding and Gallagher slips an arm around her son’s waist and pulls him closer again. He mutters something low in his ear and Mickey nods, knocking their heads together briefly.

            Gallagher presses a kiss to Mickey’s mouth that her son barely has time to respond to before he’s gone, wandering after Mandy.

            Mickey just watches him go, a slight pink tinge to his cheeks and expression soft.

            Lucile will admit that the Gallagher boy is a fine specimen of a man. Tall, built with that beacon of bright red hair on top of his head. He looked like his mother, beautiful and strange and intriguing enough to real anyone in. His smile though, was wide and genuine. His laugh, unlike his mother’s, was honest.

            She could see what Mickey saw in him, but she thought back to what she’d told them as children. She’d tried to teach them about love, steer them away from the farce she’d suffered through with Terry.

            She could tell just from the look on Mickey’s face that he’d found exactly what she’d been trying to describe to them all those years ago. Someone worth losing a lifetime looking at. Someone worth everything.

            The part she was honestly glad about though, was that this Ian Gallagher didn’t seem to be able to help but look back at her son in exactly the same way.

**Author's Note:**

> Check it out, due to you lovely people, I have learnt how to hyperlink! Thank you so much to everyone that sent me a message or comment explaining. Between you all, I HAVE LEARNT! So pleased! So now you can follow me on (wait for it) [themintsauce](http://themintsauce.tumblr.com) :D


End file.
